Originally posted by The Red Snifit
By the way, Xkeeper, I somewhat disagree with your notion that the Pyro upgrades are essentially downgrades. Of course, you did say "If you're like me", but I feel the need to point out the positives.
First of all, I agree with you to a point about the Backburner; the Flamethrower is far more useful if you can use the compression blast properly, but if you aren't that good at it for whatever reason (being new, for example), the Backburner can be more useful.
Yeah, but even if you can't use it properly, it can still be a huge help in Arena; after all, water is usuall nonexistant (or distant, period), healthpacks don't exist most of the time, and every health point counts. Putting out fires is very, very simple.
And once you've mastered compression blasting, you'll never go back.
Second of all, the Flare Gun can be quite devastating if you've mastered it; an experienced Pyro can use it effectively at both long and medium range, and, generally speaking, Pyro vs. Pyro battles don't usually involve two Pyros burning or shooting at each other with no other tactics or outside influences.
The problem is that the Flare Gun is a projectile, not a hitscan, so if you need to hit somebody now (e.g., a fleeing Scout), it won't help you at all.
I've used my shotty to finish off a fleeing enemy I ignited. In most cases, if I was any later to that attack, they would've escaped (via corner or anything else), and the flaregun isn't very effective if you've already lit 'em up.
It has its uses, yes, but generally it's useful in less circumstances.
Last of all, the Axtinguisher is almost entirely more useful than the Fire Axe, unless you happen to be in a melee-only match; the Axtinguisher can take out classes such as Heavies with ease, and, teamed up with another Pyro, it can annihilate entire groups in seconds. Underwater fights are typically uncommon, and ammo is often easy to find, so I see no real reason to keep the Fire Axe over the Axtinguisher.
That may be, but it requires several things:
1. You ignite an enemy
2. You manage to get close enough to them without getting mowed down
3. You melee them
This is time you could use to either ignite other players, continue applying fire (which does kill pretty fast, considering), or retreat and focus on other targets.
And yeah, underwater really doesn't matter too much considering that almost no fucking TF2 maps have any water deep enough to matter... but when that situation arises, if you're using the Axtinguihser, you'd better hope you have the shotty or you're more or less boned.
(Also, keep in mind Pyros/Snipers can douse flames, so you have to be quick about Axtinguishing them too.)
With that said, I, personally, use only the Axtinguisher out of the new weapons; I'm not that great with the Flare Gun, and I find the compression blast far more useful than critical hits in a situation where I would often kill my opponent regardless of whether or not I was achieving them.
Yeah, the compression blast is almost too useful. Soldier came up to start blasting rockets at an important sentry... I sat near the dispenser and reflected 90% of them back at him. Then they ubered... so I ran up to them and shoved them up, around, and over to where they couldn't hit it 
I got called a hero 
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